The Spirit of Christms
1) Assumptuous. Adj. One who is wont to make assumptions.
Should be a word.
2) Sissu. Finnish word for stubborn resistance.
Whole lotta “sissu” in the world, eh?
3) Cookies. Yesterday was Christmas cookie day at Casa Blanco. Beth and I come from two vastly different families in some ways, but in one very special, important way the White and the Hurst families have always been the same: we have Holiday traditions that include an activity around which we all gather. Beginning with Beth’s Grammy, passed on through my mother-in-law Sandy, and now practiced in the homes of all three Hurst girls. One of our next generation families with children joins us each year to continue this lovely event.
The house was warm. Casa Blanco is tiny. Much smaller than even the once-upon-a-time one-room schoolhouse that grew to became the 4-bedroom, 3 story Hurst family home. Kids and adults were crammed into our kitchen as the little ones took turns cutting out the dough and then decorating the sand tarts. The four adults held off on the first cocktail until the second of four kids finished decorating. Beth shared the fin des biscuits: her Grammy always capped off a successful cookie baking day with a glass of red wine, and so, too, did our own Grammy, Beth.
Our collection of antique tin cookie cutters sits ready for another generation.
4) There are 4 of us in my generation. Each year one of us (and our sainted spouse) hosted Mom and Dad for Christmas. Have I ever told you how this came about? Forgive me for I know this is a repeat.
Many years ago, after all four of the White kids had fledged the nest, we all casually asked my folks what their plans were for the Christmas Holiday. Each of us, in our own way, said something along the lines of “we’d love to have you come visit us.” Not hearing back from our parents accepting what we all thought was a heartfelt invitation we each just assumed that Mom and Dad had accepted the invite from one of the siblings and went about planning the Holiday with only our own nuclear families in mind.
A week or so before Christmas my younger sister Kerstin, so much younger than we older three that she had been a quasi only child, just as casually asked my Mom what she and Dad were doing for Christmas. Mind you, Kerstin was expecting to hear that they were going to a sibling’s house, but what she got was equal parts hilarious and shocking:
“Your Father always wanted to see the Rockettes’ Christmas show so we are going to spend Christmas in New York.”
Now this was outrageously out of character for my parents, and Kerstin wasn’t quite sure where Mom was going with this: “Oh…that sounds nice! How are you getting there?”
SNAP! Mom closes the trap: “Oh, we’re taking a bus, along with all of the other parents who weren’t invited to spend Christmas with any of their children.”
Ooooo, ouch. Kerstin doesn’t quite recover quickly enough and continues with polite conversation: “What are you doing for dinner?”
Mom moves in for the killshot: “Typical Christmas stuff. There’s a very nice brown bag turkey sandwich dinner that we will have on the bus. With all of the other parents who didn’t get invited to Christmas dinner by one of their children.”
By this time Kerstin is equal parts incredulous, offended, and just plain pissed off. “That’s total BS! You were invited by every single one of us. That’s it. From now on you will be assigned a child to visit each year. I will PERSONALLY tell you at Thanksgiving where you are going on Christmas.” And thus began the “Christmas Rotation” for Anne Lee and Dick.
Christmas 2023 was our last Christmas with one of our parents. Beth and I spirited Mom our of her new home in Devon Oaks for a Holiday visit with us and a few of her great-grandchildren. It was a very special treat, even though it wasn’t officially “our turn” to host. We’ve now lost all four of our parents; we will now be hosted ourselves.
If it looks like a brown bag turkey sandwich on our Christmas horizon we are planning to show up at Kerstin’s house!
5) Once again I re-post Beth’s classic take on Santa and Christmas, lightly edited to remain current.
“Santa is the Spirit of Giving. He is always real.” –Beth White
Once again Beth knocks it out of the park. We have a couple of little ones again in the White family, and because of that we will have a healthy dose of Santa in our lives. While I realize that Beth and I will not really have a say in whether or not the whole Santa Claus story plays out in our grandchildren’s houses, what he stands for is important. Important enough for us to have had him in all his splendor and glory when Danny, Megan and Randy were growing up. Important for us to draw out the time before Randy came to the realization that Santa was not a real person for as long as possible, so deep was his love for the furry fat guy.
Rest assured, the parental units in White family did struggle with how to handle the inherent subterfuge that is necessary to have the Santa Claus story as part of our children’s upbringing. From the very beginning, though, the message was about the giving, about generosity and caring enough about someone else that you not only gave them a gift, but you gave them a gift that let them know how much you cared about them. You know, the “spirit” in the Spirit of Giving, if you will.
No matter how you massage it, that day of reckoning when your child finally realizes that the character Santa Claus is nothing more than the figurative representation of that concept can be fraught with all kinds of emotional trauma. For sure you might get a dose of “you lied to me”, but in my now decades of experience being around parents it’s actually rather rare for this one to pop up. What you generally face is sadness, with maybe a touch of disappointment and even mourning tossed in just to add a little sting to the moment. Like so much else about parenting, or even just about kindness, these are times when you get to talk about and teach really important lessons. Here the lesson is about giving of yourself, with or without a physical gift to actually give.
While thinking about this Beth and I stumbled upon a lovely little story about how one family handled both the “Santa isn’t real” revelation and the “Santa is real” in spirit thing. Heck, the story may even be true! A Dad sensed that his son was pretty much on the cusp of discovering that the guy in the red suit wasn’t really the real deal. His approach? He talked to his son about how he sensed that he, the son, looked like he was not too sure about the Santa Claus character. The Dad complimented his son on being a caring young man: “Everyone who cares, who is generous, can be a Santa. I’m very impressed by how kind you are. I think you are ready to become a Santa, too.”
The Dad went on to ask his son to think about someone in his world who looked like they were sad. Maybe a bit lonely even. He tasked the boy with thinking very hard about what that person might really like as a present. Something they needed, and something that would express that whoever gave it to them realized this need, and cared enough to give them a present that helped to meet that need. There was a catch, though: the recipient was never to know who gave them the gift. For the son the satisfaction was in the caring and in the giving, not in the recognition and praise that might follow.
It doesn’t really matter who the child chose or what he gave; you can trust that the story–true or not–is just lovely right to the end. What matters is that this very young boy is escorted through what can be a very sad stage in a young life by a caring and thoughtful parent. On the other side of this journey emerges a young man who has learned the true meaning of Santa Claus in the secular Christmas story. He has learned that what matters about Santa Claus is real indeed, and always has been. That my darling Beth is right, and always has been.
Santa Claus is the Spirit of Giving. He will always be real.
I’ll see you on Christmas…
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2025 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.